Shortly after her husband died the ground beneath widow Swanson opened up and swallowed her whole. The boy next door filmed it on his phone. When the cops came, he showed them the video. There was yellow tape, cups of coffee waving tiny pennants of steam. Why were you filming...

...Mrs. Swanson? they asked. I dunno, he said. But this wasn’t true. He wanted to capture the shape of emptiness. Mrs. Swanson lost her husband one week, the next she was in the snow, chopping down her rose bushes, uprooting tulip bulbs, building aromatic fires. The boy...

...filmed her so later he could ask the video why. That night he slipped past the yellow tape and peered into the hole. A shift in the air, like a giant breathing. Snow like fireflies. Below, a voice whispered: please. The boy leaned further in. #MythicPicnictweetstory